Richard Whittall:

The Globalist's Top Ten Books in 2016: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Middle East Eye: "

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer is one of the weightiest, most revelatory, original and important books written about sport"

“The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer has helped me immensely with great information and perspective.”

Bob Bradley, former US and Egyptian national coach: "James Dorsey’s The Turbulent World of Middle Eastern Soccer (has) become a reference point for those seeking the latest information as well as looking at the broader picture."

Alon Raab in The International Journal of the History of Sport: “Dorsey’s blog is a goldmine of information.”

Play the Game: "Your expertise is clearly superior when it comes to Middle Eastern soccer."

Andrew Das, The New York Times soccer blog Goal: "No one is better at this kind of work than James Dorsey"

David Zirin, Sports Illustrated: "Essential Reading"

Change FIFA: "A fantastic new blog'

Richard Whitall of A More Splendid Life:

"James combines his intimate knowledge of the region with a great passion for soccer"

Christopher Ahl, Play the Game: "An excellent Middle East Football blog"

Monday, September 30, 2013

Much like the Muslim Brotherhood, militant soccer fans in
Egypt and Turkey are fighting for their existence.

Turkish police raided the homes of and arrested 72 militant
supporters of Istanbul’s top clubs – Besiktas JK, Fenerbahce FC and Galatasaray
SK -- after a derby between Besiktas and Galatasary was abandoned because fans
invade the pitch. Penalizing Besiktas, the Turkish Football Federation (TFF)
ordered the club to play its next four games behind closed doors.

Critics of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan suspect that
his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) engineered the incident in a bid
to further repress Besiktas’ popular militant fan group, Carsi that played a
key role in mass anti-government protests earlier this year. They point to the
fact security was lax at the match and that a youth leader of the AKP boasted
on Facebook how he had obtained a free ticket to the Besiktas Galatasary derby
and was one of the first to invade the pitch.

Turkish journalist Mehmet Baransu moreover documented links
between 1453 Kartallari (1453 Eagles), a rival conservative Besiktas support
group named in commemoration of the year that Ottoman Sultan Fatih the Conqueror
drove the Byzantines out of Constantinople, and the AKP. 1453 members reportedly
shouted ‘God is Great’ and attacked Carsi supporters during the pitch invasion.

The incident has strengthened the government’s hands in
discussion with world soccer governor FIFA and European soccer body UEFA over
the replacement of private security companies with regular police in stadia. FIFA
and UEFA as of matter of principle favor a low key police presence in stadia. The
move is part of an effort by Mr. Erdogan to gain control of and depoliticize
Turkish soccer and criminalize fan groups in response to the key role they
played in mass anti-government protests in June. Carsi lead the unification of
Istanbul’s rival fan groups who constituted the front line in confrontations
with the police.

The government has since banned the chanting of political
slogans during matches and has said it was monitoring the communications of
militant fans. It further is enforcing Breathalyzer tests at matches and
demanding that clubs oblige spectators to sign a statement pledging to abide by
the ban before they enter a stadium.

Fans have defied the ban by chanting during matches “Everywhere
is Taksim, everywhere is resistance," a reference to Istanbul’s iconic
Taksim Square, which was the focal point of the protests sparked by plans to
turn Gezi Park which abuts the square into a shopping mall.

Strengthening the government’s campaign, Besiktas president
Fikret Orman criticized the performance of a private security firm hired for
ten matches in Istanbul’s Ataturk Olympic Stadium because the club’s own
facility is under renovation. “Private security does not run away from the
fans, they chase them. What we witnessed amounted to a comedy,” Mr. Orman said.
He said that fans had entered the stadium without tickets. Up to 10,000 were
believed to have entered the already packed stadium illegally.

Sports and youth ministry official Mehmet Baykan said “three
entry points were broken into, the power supply to the turnstiles and eight
ticket readers were sabotaged. 65 people have been caught with equipment which
could have been used to cut the cables."

Aware that the protests had reduced Istanbul’s chance of winning
the hosting of the 2020 Olympic Games despite long being a frontrunner,
government officials prepared the ground for blaming the activists for the
Turkish capital’s loss. The protests were a major reason why the International
Olympic Committee awarded the tournament earlier this month to Tokyo. Turkish EU
minister Egemen Bagis warned that “those who protested at Taksim's Gezi Park
tried twice to drop Istanbul’s candidacy off the candidates list, but they
failed. If Istanbul loses, it will be because of them.’’ Mr. Bagis’ comment was
in response the anti-government protests and a report by Turkish activists,
architects and urban planners calling on the IOC not to award the games to
Istanbul.

“Prosecutors and courts continue to use terrorism laws to
prosecute and prolong incarceration of thousands of Kurdish political activists,
human rights defenders, students, journalists and trade unionists… Free speech
and media remain restricted and there have been serious violations of fair
trial rights. Great obstacles remain in securing justice for victims of abuses
by police, military and state officials. … Press members are fired, contracts
of academicians who supported Gezi are not renewed, film stars are searched for
narcotics, and students are arbitrarily detained… The powers of the Chambers of
Engineers and Architects were curbed. This was a reprisal for their role” in
the protests the report said.

The report noted that police had used tear gas and water
cannons earlier this year during protests at the opening of the Mediterranean
Games in Mersin in southeastern Turkey. It asserted that 80 percent of the tickets
for the event were awarded to government loyalists rather than to the public to
prevent potential protests against Mr. Erdogan who was scheduled to attend the
opening. Mr. Erdogan was booed during the 2010 World Basketball Championship
finals in Istanbul and the 2011 opening of the Turk Telekom Arena stadium in
the Turkish capital.

In a similar development, Egyptian officials are discussing
how to deal with the ultras, militant soccer fans who played a key role in the
toppling in 2011 of President Hosni Mubarak as well as in post-Mubarak protests
against the military. State-owned Al Ahram newspaper, long a mouthpiece for the
government, recently asked: “Will the Ultras be shown the red card after
crossing the red line? Are they digging their own grave? … Football Ultras of
soccer powerhouse Egyptian clubs Ahli and Zamalek have become a dangerous
phenomenon… These days the Ultras are a symbol of destruction, attacking the
opposition and sometimes their own kind,” the paper said.

The paper’s focus on the Ultras follows a series of
incidents in which supporters of storied Cairo clubs Al Ahli SC and Al Zamalek
SC attacked their clubs and players, demanding resignation of company
officials. Zamalek chairman Mamdouh Abbas rejected the calls for him to step
down, saying that he would only leave his post if club members adopted a motion
of confidence, not in response to the “terror of the Ultras”. Abbas urged the
military-backed government to take action against the Ultras White Knights
(UWK), the militant Zamalek support group, whom he denounced as sports
terrorists.

UWK buries one of their own

Thousands of Zamalek fans last week buried one of their
members killed by security forces while trying to storm the club’s
headquarters. The attempted storming occurred after Zamalek lost an African
Championship match to its rival Al Ahli. ”The safe exit of the club’s board of
directors after the blood of fans has been shed became impossible,” the UWK
said in a statement. At the same time relations deteriorated between Ultras
Ahlawy, the Al Ahli support group, and players who rejected conciliatory
gestures by the fans.

Relations have long been strained between the ultras and
players because the militants see them as mercenaries who play for the
highest-paying club and resent the fact that they largely remained at best
aloof during the anti-Mubarak protests because of the perks the regime granted
them. Five Al Ahli players - Ahmed Fathi, Sherif Ikrami, Abdallah Al-Said,
Shehab Ahmed and Sherif Abdel-Fadil —recently launched a campaign against the
ultras following failed attempts in the past to moderate fan militancy.
Relations improved briefly last year after 74 Ahli supporters died in a
politically-loaded brawl in the stadium of Port Said. The players’ current
campaign portrays the ultras as a threat to their safety and security.

The players as well as club officials charge that the
ultras’ militancy is hurting them economically at a time that clubs are
struggling financially as a result of reduced sponsorship, advertising and
ticket sales because league matches have been suspended for much of the almost
three years since the anti-Mubarak protests erupted. Professional soccer
matches are scheduled to resume in October.

Arrest of UWK militant

In a frontal attack on the ultras who pride themselves on
their financial independence, officials of Al Ahli and Zamalek suggested that
they were being funded by third parties and challenged them to make their
finances public. “Now it is not only firecrackers but also bird shot that is
being used in attacking us. They don’t spend money on tickets anymore but spend
it to destroy the club,” Mr. Abbas said. Al Ahram noted that the ultras “spend
much money on their trips buying tickets and firecrackers and other tools to
support the teams. Their social background doesn’t show that they have that
kind of money. Their main income comes from selling T-shirts.”

Major General Talaat Tantawi, a retired military
officer-turned security consultant, charged that the ultras much like their
counterparts in Argentina were being manipulated by groups seeking to exploit
their popularity. “It is so easy to
penetrate these groups and make use of their enthusiasm and youth. They have
become easy targets to achieve political goals and to distract them from
focusing on their main vision and mission which was supporting sports. Others
joined in and became Ultras and are acting as we see now,” Mr. Tantawi said
ignoring the fact that the ultras were politicized and steeled in years of
confrontations with security forces during the Mubarak era.

James M. Dorsey
is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies,
co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the
author of The Turbulent World
of Middle East Soccer
blog.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Controversy over conditions for unskilled and semi-skilled
workers in Qatar involved in the construction of World Cup-related
infrastructure as well as for flight attendants of Qatar Airways, the 2022
tournament’s likely official carrier, has moved center stage as world soccer
body FIFA prepares to debate next week the Gulf state’s hosting of the 2022 soccer
tournament.

FIFA’s focus is on whether to move the tournament from summer
to winter because of Qatar’s harsh summer temperatures that can exceed 40
degrees Celsius. FIFA however will find it difficult to maintain a narrow
concern for the welfare of players with no regard to the army of workers
involved in constructing billions of dollars in World Cup-related
infrastructure. Beyond reputational damage, the debate over workers’ rights and
conditions increases the risk of FIFA being pushed to entertain depriving Qatar
of its hosting rights, a move that would be perceived by much of the Muslim
world as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim.

International trade unions have for the past three years
threatened a boycott of the World Cup if Qatar failed to improve labor
conditions and accept workers’ rights to form independent trade unions and
collectively bargain. The issue has taken on added urgency with a report in The
Guardian that asserts that 44 workers had died in work-related incidents
between June 4 and August 8 and that workers had not been paid, had their
passports confiscated by employers, been denied access to free drinking water
in the desert heat, and that 30 Nepalese had sought refuge at their embassy in
Doha to escape the brutal labor conditions.

Adding to Qatar’s problems, the International Transport
Workers’ Federation (ITWF) lambasted this week Qatar Airways, the country’s
national carrier, as well as United Arab Emirates carriers Emirates and Ettihad
for prohibiting employees from organizing and demanding better working
conditions. ITWF said it would lobby the International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO), which is meeting in Canada to take action against the Gulf
carriers. The union objects to stipulations in Qatar Airways contracts that
oblige employees to obtain company permission before changing their marital
status and entitle it to fire women employees as soon as they become aware of a
pregnancy.

Union objections on the grounds that Qatar bans independent
labor organizations forced the Gulf state earlier this year to withdraw its
proposal to move ICAO headquarters from Montreal to Doha. Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker was
quoted by Arabian Business as saying at the time: “If you did not have unions you wouldn’t have
this jobless problem in the western world… It is caused by unions making
companies and institutions uncompetitive and bringing them to a position of not
being efficient. If you go and ask the politicians in most of the countries in
the western world they would love to have the system we have: where the workers
have rights through the law but they do not have rights through striking and
undermining successful institutions that provide jobs to their knees.”

Qatar Airways was last year the target of an online call for
a boycott by hundreds of Qataris who objected to its employment policies as
well as the fact that it operates a shop in Doha that sells alcohol and pork to
foreigners.

Qatar has responded to international criticism of its labor
conditions by seeking to improve working and living conditions, including
stricter enforcement of timely payment of wages, limiting the number of workers
permitted to live in one room, planning a city for foreign workers who account
for 94 percent of the Qatari workforce and enhancing leisure opportunities,
including the creation of a soccer league for foreign workers.

The Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee that is responsible for
organizing the World Cup issued a Workers’ Charter earlier this year that
pledged to meet international standards with the exception of the right to
independent trade unions and collective bargaining. Qatar Foundation, the
institution that funds educational and social projects, is working on a similar
charter. It is also looking at streamlining recruitment to cut out middlemen
and agents that charge onerous rates and are responsible for workers’ huge debt
burden.

In a response to The Guardian story, the 2022 committee
said: “Like everyone viewing the video and images, and reading the accompanying
texts, we are appalled by the findings presented in The Guardian's report. There
is no excuse for any worker in Qatar, or anywhere else, to be treated in this
manner. The health, safety, well-being and dignity of every worker that
contributes to staging the 2022 FIFA World Cup is of the utmost importance to
our committee and we are committed to ensuring that the event serves as a catalyst
toward creating sustainable improvements to the lives of all workers in Qatar.”

Qatari executives note that one offset of the awarding of
the World Cup is the fact that workers’ rights and working conditions are on
the table and that steps are being taken to address the situation. “While
construction on work relating directly to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar has
not yet commenced, we have always believed that hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup
in Qatar could be the catalyst for positive change, particularly for
accelerating human and social development in Qatar,” the 2022 committee said. The
committee said the government was investigating companies identified in The
Guardian report.

Qatar has so far however refrained from steps to abolish the
onerous Kafala or sponsorship system that makes employees virtually beholden to
their employers a step that could convince trade unions and human rights
activists that it is serious about reform. The Guardian report signals that on
many of the issues such as timely payment, return of passports after completion
of immigration procedures and access to water, Qatar is lagging in enforcement
rather than in legislation and regulation.

The unanswered question is why Qatar has failed to tackle
the Kafala system head on and allowed it to fester. Writing in Open
Democracy, Michael Stephens, a researcher at the Royal United Services
Institute (RUSI) Qatar, noted that a majority of Qataris acknowledge that their
country’s labor system is in desperate need of reform. Kafala, moreover, is
disliked not only by employees but also by many employers because it makes them
liable for whatever the worker does during and outside of working hours. Mr.
Stephens argues that authorities understand the need for change but are not
giving it the priority required to stop further damage to Qatar’s reputation.

Yet, at the same time, he concedes that conservative forces
and at least some business circles oppose abolishing kafala. “Business
interests are often the hindrance, and the young Emir, like his father will
need to work hard to combat those companies, including many western entities
that accept and propagate the system that stands against the interests of a
majority of the country, local and foreign alike,” Mr. Stephens wrote referring
to 33-year old Sheikh Tamim bin Khalifa Al Thani who became emir in June after
his father, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, abdicated.

A recent study by researchers of Weill Cornell Medical
College in Qatar concluded that the cost of maintaining the labor system went
beyond reputational damage. The researchers concluded that Qatar would be near
the top of the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI) if adjustments
were made for the country’s large population of migrant workers. With other
words, the system undercuts Qatar’s soft power effort designed to project the
Gulf state as a cutting edge, 21st century knowledge-based society.

James M. Dorsey
is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies,
co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the
author of The Turbulent World
of Middle East Soccer
blog.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Turkish soccer pitches have reasserted themselves as political
battlefields following the death of a protester and the emergence of
pro-government football support groups in the wake of mass anti-government
demonstrations in June.

The revival of the soccer battlefield signals the initial
failure of government attempts to regain political control of the pitch by
imposing restrictions on political expression during matches, tacitly
supporting pro-government support groups,
legal actions against anti-government fans and a public affairs campaign that
projects protest as a precursor of terrorism.

Clashes during an Istanbul derby this weekend between rival
fan groups as well as with the police cemented soccer’s role in Turkey’s
political power struggles, fuelled suggestions that the government was
employing its football support groups to create pretexts for further measures
against Carsi, the militant left wing fan group of storied Istanbul club
Besiktas JK and strengthened allegations that its rival Galatasaray FC may have
played a murky role in a match-fixing scandal.

Police arrested 68 fans this weekend after supporters
stormed the pitch during the extension of a home match between Besiktas and
Galatasaray. The detainees were later released after being slapped with a one-year
ban on attending soccer matches. The clashes erupted after a referee handed a
red card to Galatasaray player Felipe Melo and ordered Besiktas coach Slaven
Bilic off the field. In response, fans stormed the pitch.

Members of 1453 Kartallari (1453 Eagles), a religious Galatasary
support group named in commemoration of the year that Ottoman Sultan Fatih the
Conqueror drove the Byzantines out of Constantinople, shouted ‘God is Great,’
and attacked Carsi supporters, who played a key role in the Gezi Park protests
in June against Islamist prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 1453 is believed
to have ties with Mr. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). 1453
spokesman Fırat Aydınus denied that his group had links to the AKP, but
conceded that none of its members were arrested in connection with the clashes.

"These events were orchestrated. Melo is not the
reason, he was only the means [of provocation]," Carsi said on Twitter.
Opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Sezgin Tannkulu has asked Mr.
Erdogan to advise parliament whether his government was waging a campaign of
intimidation against Carsi.

The incident in Istanbul’s overcrowded Ataturk Olympic Stadium
followed on the heels of last week’s anti-government protests in Kadikoy on the
Asian side of Istanbul which is home to Fenerbahce, Turkey’s most popular club.
Fenerbahce fans led the protests that were sparked by claims that a police
tear-gas canister had killed 22-year-old Ahmet Atakan during demonstrations in
early September in the southeastern city of Hatay.

The clashes during the Besiktas Galatasaray match served to
widen the gap between Besiktas’s pro-government management and its
anti-government fans, 20 of which were indicted earlier on charges of being
members of an illegal organization for their alleged role in the protests in
June against government plans to replace Gezi Park on Istanbul’s iconic Taksim
Square with a shopping mall. The 20 face up to 15 years in prison under Turkey’s
draconic laws against organized crime. The government has denounced protesters,
including members of Carsi who united rival soccer fan groups in confronting law
enforcement.

Interior minister Muammar Guler said the government would
prosecute whoever had been caught on security cameras in the stadium. Deputy
Prime Minister Bulent Arinc warned that "radical measures will have to be
taken to ensure that such events do not occur again."

The government last month banned the shouting of political
slogans in stadia and ordered clubs to force spectators to sign a statement
that they would abide by the ban. Soccer fans said the clubs had found it
difficult to impose the signing of the pledge.

Government plans to replace private security companies with
police in stadia have been stalled by opposition by European soccer body UEFA
and world soccer governor FIFA who are against an overbearing police presence
in stadia. The government insisted however that plainclothes policemen would
mingle with militant fans during matches and that their activities on social
media would be monitored. Fans demonstratively violate the ban by chanting
political slogans in the 34th minute of this season’s matches.
Istanbul license plates start with 34.

Critics charge that the ban targets opponents of Mr.
Erdogan, a former semi-professional soccer player, who dons the scarf of Kasimpasa
SK, the local Istanbul club in the neighborhood where the prime minister grew
up, during pro-government rallies. Kasimpasa named its stadium after Mr.
Erdogan. Mr. Erdogan often likes to address crowds in stadia which government
officials argue does not violate the ban that applies only to matches, not to stadia
in general.

With its own stadium being renovated, Besiktas is playing in
a twist of irony its home matches in Kasimpasa’ Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium.
Carsi members unleashed a torrent of anti-government slogans in their opening
match in the stadium, prompting state-owned and pro-government television channels
to mute the sound of the protests. “We stand for fairness and justice. Nothing
will stop us from upholding our principles,” said a Carsi member.

The government’s restrictive measures were accompanied by a
campaign by the Anti-Terrorism Office and the police warning that protests were
the first step towards terrorism. They issued a 55-second video featuring a
young woman demonstrator-turned suicide bomber warned the public that “our
youth, who are the guarantors of our future, can start with small
demonstrations of resistance that appear to be innocent, and after a short
period of time, can engage without a blink in actions that may take the lives
of dozens of innocent people.” Throughout the video, the words ‘before it is
too late’ are displayed.

Scores of fans believed to be members of 1453 scaled
barricades and stadium walls to attend the Besiktas Galatasaray match. Recently
amended Turkish Football Federation regulations bar supporters of a visiting
team from entering the host stadium during a derby. “We have to learn that
football is a game. When I came here and saw the crowd, I got goose bumps.
Let’s turn football into a festival,” said TFF vice chairman Ufuk Ozerten after
last weekend’s derby.

Political scientist Dogu Ergil, speaking to Zaman newspaper
that is owned by Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist rival, self-exiled preacher Fethullalh
Gulen, said mounting tension on the pitch was the result of delays in deepening
Turkish democracy. "Society is frustrated due to the arrested development
of democracy, and frustration triggers violence. Since there are no other
outlets to express one's frustration, this is what happens," Mr. Ergil
said.

He said successive governments, including that of Mr.
Erdogan, approached democracy as a form of tutelage rather than a participatory
system. "Whichever group dominates the state, it puts this system of
tutelage to work. But democracy is a culture of compromise, and imposing one's
opinions on others leads to frustration … Governments in Turkey are not here to govern
but to give orders," Mr. Ergil said, pointing to the ban on political
slogans in stadia.

Mr. Ergil used Mr. Erdogan’s intervention last year to
ensure that those implicated in a massive match fixing scandal that constituted
the backdrop to a power struggle between the prime minister and Mr. Gulen would
be treated leniently as an example. "There are no rules in Turkey. There
is only [government] power. And things transpire the way they want them to,”
Mr. Ergil said.

Koray Caliskan, a political scientist at İstanbul's Bosporus
University added that Mr. Erdogan defines democracy as a ‘ballotocracy,’ a
system in which the winning party caters to its followers with no regard for
other segments of society. “Erdogan criminalizes every act. He accused Kurds on
a hunger strike of eating kebabs; he demeaned those who protested at Gezi as
thugs. He treats legitimate and democratic protests as a crime. Non-political
spheres are politicized as democracy weakens, People first take to the streets,
and then when that is suppressed, to the stadiums," Mr. Caliskan said.

James M. Dorsey
is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies,
co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the
author of The Turbulent World
of Middle East Soccer
blog.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

A pending decision in early October by world soccer body
FIFA on whether to move the Qatar 2022 World Cup from summer to winter
threatens to open debate on whether to deprive the Gulf state of its right to
host one of the world’s two largest sporting events and could spark allegations
of an anti-Arab bias.

The debate about the Qatari World Cup also focuses the
spotlight on the incestuous relationship between politics and sports, a relationship
that FIFA president Sepp Blatter in a rare acknowledgement, confirmed by
charging that politics had prompted the eight European members of his 24-member
executive committee to deliver eight of the 14 votes cast in favor of Qatar.
The acknowledgement highlights the need to end denial of a fact of life and
move to some form of governance of the relationship between sports and
politics.

The debates have intensified as the FIFA executive committee
prepares to discuss on October 3 and 4 a shifting the Qatari World Cup to
winter because of searing summer temperatures in the Gulf state that exceed 40
degrees Celsius could affect the health and performance of players. Arsene
Wenger, the storied manager of British Premier League club Arsenal, in a
reflection of opposition by European clubs to a change of date, urged FIFA to stand
by its original decision about but expressed concern about the impact of extreme
heat on fans rather than players.

The debate about the timing of the tournament preempts a
litmus test of cooling technology Qatar, the first Middle Eastern and Muslim
state to be awarded World Cup hosting rights, says would make the holding the
tournament in the summer feasible despite the heat. The technology which has
been applied in small spaces is expected to be tested when Qatar completes in
2015/6 the first of up to nine stadia.

Potential legal challenges to any change of debate as well
as a row between Mr. Blatter and the head of UEFA, the European soccer body,
Michel Platini, a potential challenger to Mr. Blatter’s presidency in FIFA’s
next presidential election scheduled for 2015, risk strengthening calls for a
change of venue. Mr. Platini has backed calls for a shift from summer to
winter.

Frank Lowy, head of the Australian Football Federation, one
of several bidders defeated by Qatar, warned that a shift from summer to winter
would be “tantamount to changing the rules after the contest is over." Mr.
Lowy vowed to take legal action to reclaim taxpayers' money spent on the failed
Australian bid would have been wasted if the federation had been campaign
conducted under false pretenses.

FIFA’s corporate sponsors as well as broadcasters who bought
rights for billions of dollars potentially could also seek legal redress. Fox
TV together with Spanish language broadcaster Telemundo paid $1 billion for US
television rights, a sum far higher than what they would have paid the United
States’ National Football League. The two tournaments could overlap if the timing
of the World Cup is changed.

Complicating the controversy over Qatar’s is Mr. Blatter’s
assertion that European members of the FIFA executive committee had voted in
favor of Qatar as a result of political pressure. In response, Mr. Platini,
whose son is legal counsel for state-owned Qatar Sports Investments, became the
first member to disclose that he had voted in favor of the Gulf state. Mr.
Platini denied that his decision had been politically motivated.

Mr. Platini’s denial rang hollow given that his vote is
widely believed to have been part of a three-way deal with Nicolas Sarkozy when
he was president of France and former Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.

As part of the deal
QSI acquired Paris St. Germain (PSG), Mr. Sarkozy’s favorite team and pledged
to step up already substantial investments in France. Qatar’s state-owned Al
Jazeera television network would gaining rights to France’s Ligue 1 in another
element of the deal that was forged over lunch at the Elysée Palace.

In an interview with
Al-Monitor, Qatar’s ambassador to France, Mohamed Al Kuwari, explained at the
time Qatar’s interest in France by saying that “you invest in France, you build
partnerships and you go elsewhere, to Africa, to Asia. We are looking for
strong partners like Total, Vinci, Veolia.” Moreover, he said, France, like
Qatar charts its own course internationally. It “has an independent policy,
plays an important role in the world, diplomatically and politically,” he said.

The World Cup so far
has failed to pay Qatar the reputational dividend it had expected. Legal
challenges and calls for depriving it of its hosting right could cause it
further damage at a time that international trade unions and human rights
groups are exploiting the tournament to pressure the Gulf state to
substantially alter a migrant labor system they denounce as modern slavery.
Foreign labor constitutes 94 percent of the Qatari labor force and a majority
of the population.

The risk of
reputational damage and a rift over perceived anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias is
magnified in Qatar’s case by the fact that its sports investment strategy is
key to its defense and security policy. Qatar, no matter how many sophisticated
weapons it purchases, will never be able to defend itself. The 1990 Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait taught it two lessons. For one, big brother Saudi Arabia,
unable to ensure its own defense, was an unreliable guarantor that depends on a
US defense umbrella. Confidence in the reliability of the United States has however
been called into question by the United States’ economic problems, its
reluctance to engage militarily post-Iraq and Afghanistan and its likely
emergence within a decade as the world’s largest oil exporter. Equally important, the international
coalition that came to Kuwait’s aid demonstrated that soft power and embedment
in the global community at multiple levels earns one friends when in need.

For Qatar, the
message was clear. It vested its soft power in sports and particularly soccer
even if it was a late convert to the beautiful game. Qataris first saw British
oil workers in the 1940s play what they thought was an odd but amusing
spectacle. “We had no idea of sports like
that … But we used to enjoy watching the strange spectacle,” recalled Ibrahim
al-Muhannadi, a government official and member of the Qatar Olympic Committee.

James M. Dorsey
is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies,
co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the
author of The Turbulent
World of Middle East Soccer blog.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Middle Eastern investors have adopted a new strategy of
buying low and selling high with a series of acquisitions of second and third
tier European soccer clubs.

In the most recent acquisition, Saudi Prince Abdullah bin
Mosaad, the billionaire former president of Saudi Arabia's most successful club
Al Hilal and founder and chairman of the publicly-listed Saudi Paper
Manufacturing Group, the largest paper tissue manufacturer in the Middle East, bought
a 50 per cent stake in Sheffield United with the aim of helping the club
graduate from the third league to England’s Premier League.

"This is the best way to make profit if the club rises
to League One and then the premiership," the prince, the first member of
the Saudi ruling family to invest in a foreign soccer team, said.

Prince Abdullah’s statement echoed earlier remarks by Bahraini
investors who late last year bought storied second tier English club Leeds
United for $82.5 million. GFH Capital was the first Islamic finance institution
to acquire a European soccer club.

‘Sport is one area where there haven’t been many Islamic
investments – certainly not to the degree of a full takeover by an Islamic
investment firm – but we saw a huge opportunity there … Ultimately, we’re a
bank and we’re here to make money for investors … Leeds is one of the very few
clubs in the Championship that has a real possibility of becoming a
self-sustaining investment, and we really want to get the club into that
position,” said. David Haigh, deputy CEO of Bahrain-based Gulf Finance House
Capital, David Haigh, deputy CEO of Bahrain-based Gulf Finance House Capital,

Since acquiring the club less than a year ago, GFH Capital
has sold more than half of its holding to other Middle Eastern investors.

“I see Leeds as a sleeping giant and the more I am involved,
the more I appreciate that. There were many clubs available for sale in the
Championship, but Leeds have a different reputation and because of this
potential that we were attracted,” said Salah Nooruddin, Bahrain-based
businessman, who became chairman of Leeds after buying a 3.3 percent stake in
the club from GFH Capital.

GFH’s acquisition of Leeds initially raised questions
because of the group’s mixed investment track record and negative experiences
of other clubs such as Portsmouth SC, Swiss Super League club Servette FC, Austria’s
Admira Wacker and Spain’s Malaga CF that have suffered from and at times seen
their problems aggravated by acquisitions by Middle Eastern commoners or lesser
members of ruling families whose takeovers proved to be whimsical rather than
strategic.

GHF’s close ties to the minority Sunni Muslim Bahraini
ruling family that two years ago brutally crushed a popular uprising by the
island’s majority Shia Muslim population raised questions whether the Leeds
acquisition was partially intended to shore up Bahrain’s tarnished image.

Human Rights Watch charged last month that the acquisition
in 2010 of Manchester City by a senior member of the ruling family of the
United Arab Emirates, who has proven to be a serious and committed investor, served
to launder the country’s image.

The acquisition of European clubs by nations with a record
of suppressing opposition and violating human rights prompted former English
Football Association chairman Lord Triesman to call for making a country’s
human rights record one of the criteria for establishing whether a state entity
or member of a ruling family passes the "fit and proper person test"
for ownership of a Premier League club. Lord Triesman’s criteria would not
apply to GFH which is not a state-owned entity.

The focus on the UAE followed the mass trial this summer of
94 people of which 69 were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on charges of
being members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Human rights activists condemned the
trial as unfair and a violation of due process. They asserted that the
defendants had been denied legal assistance while being held incommunicado,
allegedly tortured and were not given the right to appeal. Responding to the
criticism, the UAE justice ministry implicitly did not rule out torture,
arguing that alleged victims should have reported abuse to the police.

Qatar, which like the UAE has proven to be a solid investor
because it too sees its soccer investments as strategic and key to the
enhancement of its soft power in a bid to compensate for the fact that it will
never have the military muscle to defend itself without external help, has
learnt that reputational risk is the downside of involvement in soccer.

Qatar’s winning of the right to host the 2022 World Cup
remains controversial almost three years after world soccer body FIFA awarded
it the tournament. Weeks before FIFA’s executive committee meets to decide
whether to move the competition from summer to winter because of the Gulf state’s
searing summer temperatures, Qatar finds itself fending off demands that it be
deprived of its hosting rights. Qatar has been further in the firing line
because of labor rights and questions about gay rights during the tournament.

While Qatar has put itself in a class of its own by going
beyond acquisitions to develop a fully-fledged sports sector and industry of
its own, it too is looking at less flashy targets in Europe. After winning the
World Cup hosting, purchasing Paris St. Germain, sponsoring Barcelona FC and
acquiring rights to major leagues for its state-owned Al Jazeera television
network, Qatar last year acquired Belgium’s second division KAS Eupen.

The acquisition by Qatar's Aspire Zone Foundation (AZF) differs
from those by Prince Abdullah and GFH Capital by virtue of the fact that it is
part of a grander strategy designed to make the Gulf state a key node in world
soccer. The acquisition is intended to further the sport academy’s Football
Dreams program, which scouts potential talent among adolescents in developing
African nations as well as Vietnam, Thailand, Guatemala and Paraguay.

"We travel through these countries all year round with
coaches and volunteers, organize matches, and provide the players with apparel.
We then stage a final match in each country, with an international final held
in Qatar," said ATZ director general Ivan Bravo. Mr. Bravo. Football
Dreams graduates would be placed with Eupen.

"Graduates will come to Doha and work with Qatari
players. We wanted to do something that could help develop Qatari athletes. The
idea is to find talented football players around the world that would help
Qatari players become better players," Mr. Bravo said.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s
Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent
World of Middle East Soccer blog.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Saudi Arabia’s secretive ruling family is mulling allowing
women to attend soccer matches. No Saudi official has suggested that the
controversial issue is under discussion but if past experience is any
indication, a series of statements and denials suggests that a debate is
underway.

The debate would be a revival of closed door discussions that
has been waged on and off for the past two years. Attempting to assess debates
within the secretive family is not dissimilar to Kremlinology, the speculative
science analysts developed in an effort to understand the inner workings of the
Soviet leadership.

Granting women sporting rights in the kingdom that in most
parts of the world would be taken for granted takes on added significance with
the Saudi Football Federation’s recent suggestion that the kingdom will compete
against the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Thailand and Iran for
the right to host the 2019 Asia Cup; hints that Saudi Arabia may field a
serious candidate for next year’s election of a new head of the Asian Football
Confederation (AFC) and the acquisition by Saudi Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad of a 50 percent stake in third tier English
cub Sheffield United.

The moves that would that would project Saudi Arabia on the
global soccer map are not without risk as Qatar and Abu Dhabi have learnt the
hard way. Qatar had expected to be cheered when it won the hosting rights for
the 2022 World Cup, but has since had to deal with a barrage of criticism,
negative publicity and demands that the tournament’s venue be moved. Recent
improvements in the material conditions of foreign labor, who constitute a
majority of the Gulf state’s population, are the result of a threat by
international trade unions and human rights groups to boycott the World Cup and
companies involved in the construction of infrastructure related to the
tournament if Qatar fails to adhere to international labor standards.

Human Rights Watch last month accused the UAE of using its
ownership of English Premier League club Manchester City and move into the
United States’ Major League Soccer to polish an image increasingly tarnished by
autocratic and counterrevolutionary policies, including the recent sentencing of
scores of dissidents on charges of plotting to overthrow the government and UAE
support for the military coup that ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi.

A country that is developing its first national sports plan
for men only; lacks physical education for girls in public schools; forces
women’s soccer clubs to operate in a legal and social nether land; bans women
from driving, travelling without authorization from a male relative and working
in a host of professions; and when it was forced last year by the International
Olympic Committee (IOC) to field women athletes chose two minor expatriates,
Saudi Arabia is particularly vulnerable to criticism.

In minor concessions, Saudi Arabia’s religious police said
earlier this year that women would be allowed to ride bikes and motorbikes in
recreational areas provided that they were properly dressed and accompanied by
a male relative. Authorities also announced that they would allow girl’s
physical education in private schools as long as it was in line with Islamic
law.

Saudi Football Federation (SFF) president Ahmed Eid Alharbi,
a storied former goalkeeper who became the kingdom’s first elected sports official
after his predecessor, a member of the ruling family, was forced under fan
pressure to step down, has hinted at the economic impact of allowing women to
attend soccer matches would have.

He said earlier this year that the creation of facilities
for women would increase capacity at stadiums by 15 percent. Alharbi said the
Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium in Jeddah would be the first to accommodate
up to 32,000 women followed by the King Abdullah City stadium in the capital in
2014. Saudi Arabia, which enforces strict gender segregation, first announced
in 2012 plans to upgrade the Jeddah stadium to enable women to enter.

Alharbi later qualified his remarks by saying that the
decision to lift the ban on women was not his. “A decision like this is a
sovereign decision. Neither I nor SAFF can make it. Only the political
leadership in this country can make that decision,” he said.

Prospects for women’s attendance were further thrown into
doubt in the past week when Prince Nawaf bin Faisal, the head of the youth
welfare authority who resigned as head of the national soccer body, and the SFF
denied that women would be granted access to the King Fahad Stadium in Riyadh
during last week’s friendly against New Zealand. The denial was issued after
the stadium’s manager, Sulaiman al-Yousef, manager of King Fahad Stadium, announced
that foreign women and children would be permitted to watch the match. A
picture on the website of the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television network of a
few women and children in the stadium appeared to counter the denial.

It would not be the first time that Saudi Arabia succumbed
to pressure. Protests by Sweden in 2006 in advance of a friendly in Riyadh
persuaded the kingdom to allow Swedish women to attend separated from men by
seating them in areas reserved for the media

The debate about women’s access to soccer matches is being
waged against the backdrop of a series of anti-government incidents in the wake
of last year’s resignation of Prince Nawaf. A Facebook page entitled Nasrawi
Revolution demanded the resignation of Prince Faisal bin Turki, the owner of
storied Riyadh club Al Nasser FC and a burly nephew of King Abdullah who sports
a mustache and chin hair. A You Tube video captured Prince Faisal seemingly
being pelted and chanted against as he rushed off the soccer pitch after rudely
shoving a security official aside.

“Everything is upside down. Revolution is possible. There is
change, but it is slow. It has to be fast. Nobody knows what will happen,” said
a Saudi sports journalist referring to broader discontent in the kingdom that
goes far beyond soccer.

James M. Dorsey is a senior
fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the
University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog.

Sporticos

Ads

Soccer Results

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer does not promote, link to or provide videos from any online sources who distribute illegal streaming content over the Internet with domains registered in the United States of America

Top 100 Soccer Sites

Subscribe To

Subscribe by Email

About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile